Day out in Tirana

Good start to the day as we ran through the city centre to the artificial lake on the outskirts.

There is a 5k running and cycling route around it and the whole area is full of cafes and people relaxing.

It was a 10k run, I was really tired and hot by the end, but then we ran right past the hidden entrance to our hotel and an extra kilometre before we realised our mistake.

After a nice long break we then visited the Bunk Art 2.

This is a very strange and interesting place that tries to tell the story of the last 100 years in Albania.

It is set in an old underground nuclear bunker right in the centre of town, and was built in the 1960s.

The background to this is all the idea of the dictator Enver Hoxha, who ruled Albania from 1946 until his death in 1985.

He ruled with an iron fist and allowed no Albanians out of the country and almost no foreigners in. He turned the whole country into a police state and encouraged the citizens to spy on each other and report any transgressions.

There was lots of ingenious ways of spying, and this set up showed two neighbours with a hole drilled in the wall and listening and camera equipment to gather evidence.

Many thousands of people were tortured and murdered and an art installation showed a brain imprisoned within a barbed wire cage to show that no independent thoughts were allowed.

Enver Hoxha believed that all of the neighbouring countries were planning on invading and he had over 160,000 bunkers built all over the country. This one had a decontamination room that was extremely claustrophobic.

The military rule ended in 1991 and since then Albania has changed massively, but this exhibition wants everyone to look forward, but also to remember the past.

It was a relief to come back up into the fresh air and daylight again.

For dinner we decided to go to a restaurant that I saw yesterday, as I was impressed with the happy looking people drinking wine and watching the people pass by.

The menu looked a bit difficult and I chose ravioli while Darren went for sausage in cherry sauce. He did happen to notice that the menu used to have an s on the end of sausage, but that had been rubbed out.

Our wine arrived first and it was the smallest amount of wine in the largest glass that I have ever seen. Huge disappointment, but I sipped it slowly to try to make it last and then Darren's dinner arrived.

One small sausage in a very cherry sauce. Nothing else. It was quite funny really, but surely the waiter could have asked if he wanted anything else with it when he ordered??

Not our most successful meal, but we will be wiser next time.

Actually the photo makes it look bigger than it actually was.

I love T, where are we today?

First day of our latest holiday today, and where are we?

I am always a fan of the 'I love' signs, but I have never seen one that uses only the first letter. I could be in Turin, Toronto or even Taiwan, but actually it is Tirana in Albania. Not necessarily the first T that comes to mind.

We are in the main Skanderbeg Square, and they also have a very large flag, with the excellent national emblem.

The square is named after a 15th century hero, Gjergji Skanderbeg, who fought against the Ottoman empire.

We set off this morning at 2.30am, arriving in Tirana before noon, and after a quick nap at our hotel we set off to explore.

Tirana is a very compact capital city with lots of building work going on, and this incredible church was actually built in 2017.

This is just a random new tower block, but look closely and every balcony has two full sized trees on them. It looks good now, and hope that they all get enough water and grow well.

To be honest there aren't many stand out sights, but this is called the pyramid, and appears to be a building underneath with loads of steps on the outside rather than having a roof. Nice views from the top.

Finally for today, we had dinner in an area called the Castle. This is a bit of an exaggeration as there is almost no castle left standing, but there was lots of bars and restaurants and a lovely atmosphere with families promenading in the evening sunshine.

Marc Quinn at Kew Gardens

 Caught the train to London and then hopped on the Bromptons for the journey towards Kew. We stopped off at Hammersmith to catch a bit of Olympic coverage on a big screen.

This was a close up of a Chinese table tennis player.

Once at Kew we picked up a map and went to the superb Princess of Wales conservatory.

My absolute favourite area is the giant water lillies and an urban myth is that a small child can sit on a lily pad and it doesn't sink. We didn't see this theory being tested, but one of the gardeners was in the pond in waders doing maintenance and they piled their tools up on a pad and non of them got wet.

One of the lily ponds had a glass viewing window and there was gigantic fish swimming around underneath them. They looked at least four feet long, but it is possible that the glass was acting as a magnifier, or I could be exaggerating.

Back outside we passed a beautiful sculpture amongst the ferns, but it wasn't by Marc Quinn so we had to keep walking on.

Who is Marc Quinn you may be asking?

 Well he is a London based artist who - according to the brochure - is not easily categorised. This sort of build up is always a worry to me.

He has 17 sculptures all around the gardens, and they are all inspired by Kew's landscape and collections.

This one is outside the palm house and is a giant shiny palm leaf, and a giant red orchid was down by the pagoda.

He also sculpted four bonsai trees and 'imagined that they had been set free from the pruning and containment and were set free to reach their full height'.

So he sculpted two enormous bonsai plants, or maybe we should just call them trees, in nice bonsai style pots. 

Finally, five mirrored sculptures set in the gardens. These were the most fun and if you stood in the right place then you could get a nice selfie.

So overall, Marc added some extra interest to the trip, but really couldn't compare to the fantastic nature on display.

Trnava

This morning we caught a double decker train from Bratislava to the seventh biggest city in Slovakia - Trnava.

Possibly a strange choice you might think, but we had seen most of the sights of Bratislava, and Trnava was the easiest large place that we could reach easily. It's not that large, only about 70,000 people, but it had one of the prettiest welcome signs ever.

However, we did a round trip from the station and started with the boring side of town first in order to reach the Synagogue Café for coffee and cake.

There are two synagogues in Trnava, but 82% of the Jewish population were sent to concentration camps and killed in the second world war. So now there is only one and this one instead has been beautifully renovated and turned into an excellent café.

Feeling refreshed we set off again and then we were surrounded churches and glorious avenues.

Trnava has an ancient old town, with church spires on almost every corner.

It also has a huge city wall, and quite a bit of it still remains. Someone has also thoughtfully put model people on the top showing how they would have defended the city.

Once we got outside of the wall we could see how difficult it would be to get in, although nowadays there is a handy gate for cars and people.

We then walked along a lovely street filled with cafes and flowers on our way back towards the station.

Finally, our last image, which if we had been more logical would have been our first, were the local people welcoming us to their city.

Then it was back on the train to Bratislava. A surprisingly nice day out.

Sightseeing in Bratislava

Our hotel is slightly outside the centre, but that meant that we would see the beautiful and curvy roof of Michael's Gate every time we went in or out.

Once inside the capital city of Slovakia it is always busy, and full of lovely buildings.

A small treat on a corner was this statue of a man climbing out of the drains. Actually it looks much better than it sounds. And it also looks better in real life than this photo.

My favourite place was a gorgeous blue church, apparently called the Blue Church, and it fitted it's description.

We arrived by chance exactly at 11am and watched latecomers rushing in, while at a side entrance the priest and his entourage stood to attention before heading inside.

Down by the river is a curious sight, known as the UFO building. It was built during Soviet times as apparently they were very interested in the idea of visitors from outer space.

We walked past the base of it and visitors were waiting for the angled lift in one of the legs to take them up to a rather expensive viewing platform.

Instead of gaining altitude in an elevator, we walked up to the castle on the opposite bank.

It's a forbidding looking place, although it has nice cool tree lined gardens and a great view of both the UFO tower and the town.

This is St Martin's Cathedral, and is known for being the coronation church in the Habsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary. 

(For those with a good memory, the amazing palace in Vienna was built by the unbelievably wealthy Habsburg family.)

I am interested in this cathedral because we also have a clear view of it from our Coronation bedroom at the hotel. 11 kings and queens were crowned there between 1563 and 1830, and their pictures fill our wall. My favourite is Rudolph.

Final interesting fact, a replica of the Hungarian crown weighing 300 kilograms and almost as tall as me is on the tip of the tower.

Vienna to Bratislava

Good start to Saturday with a nice, not too hot run around Donaupark parkrun.

The Austrians call the River Danube the Donau, and our run was on a little island in the river.

However, Susan and Paul who are out here with us had done this run before so instead caught a train to Graz to do the parkrun there.

Their route is in the shape of a duck, and I am very jealous!

After the run we checked out of our hotel and went down to the bank of the Donau. All along the bank were bars, cafés and ice cream stalls, and a pontoon style bridge to get to the other side.

Then it was just a one hour bus ride from the capital of Austria to the capital of Slovakia.

At first glance Bratislava seems very small and compact in comparison and our hotel is up on quite a steep hill.

At the hotel we have checked into our room, and it is called the City of Coronation room. Basically it is a normal sized room, but we have a shelf with a crown in a glass box and lots of pictures of past kings and queens on the wall opposite to the bed.

Ps, I don't think that we are allowed to wear it, also it doesn't make up for the aircon being very poor.